Report of the Special Committee to Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration

Report of the Special Committee to Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration Commonwealth War Graves Commission; Steinbach, Daniel Publication date: 2021 Document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Citation for published version (APA): Commonwealth War Graves Commission, & Steinbach, D. (2021). Report of the Special Committee to Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Download date: 27. sep.. 2021 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION MAIDENHEAD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION. 2021. REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION First published in Great Britain in 2021 by The Commonwealth War Graves Commission 2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, SL6 7DX www.cwgc.org Copyright Commonwealth War Graves Commission 2021 Digital ISBN [978-0-9565074-1-9] Print ISBN [978-0-9565074-2-6] 2 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS COMMITTEE MEMBERS Committee Chair Sir Tim Hitchens KCVO CMG Researched, compiled and written by Dr George Hay Dr John Burke Committee Members Professor Michèle Barrett Shrabani Basu Selena Carty Blondel Cluff CBE Professor Mark Connelly Terry Denham Amandeep Madra OBE Edward Paice Trevor Phillips OBE Dr Gavin Rand Dr Anne Samson Dr Kevin Searle Dr Daniel Steinbach Dr Nicholas Westcott CMG 3 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION In December 2019, the Commissioners of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) elected to appoint a committee of independent experts and community representatives with the following remit: • To analyse the historical actions of the CWGC within a global context to identify and, wherever possible, correct any gaps in commemoration. • To produce recommendations that would help shape the future work of the CWGC. At the time of establishment, it was envisioned that the Committee would meet in-person at the CWGC’s Head Office in Maidenhead, meaning representation was UK based. The Committee was asked to be impartial, objective and to report the facts, however uncomfortable they might be. Sir Tim Hitchens, a CWGC Commissioner, was appointed as the Special Committee’s Chair. 4 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION CONTENTS CONTENTS Executive summary 6 Introduction 8 i. The dangers of complacency ii. A note on methodology, scope and limitations iii. Terminology and language Part 1 – An imperial war and the peoples of empire 13 i. Recruitment, service and recognition ii. Quantifying the problem Part 2 – Roles and responsibilities of the IWGC 20 i. Establishment, principles and the primacy of the Western Front ii. Legacies of wartime burial, graves registration and prejudices in paperwork Part 3 – Errors, oversights and injustices 25 i. Reaction rather than action ii. The limits of equality iii. Categorisation and examples Part 4 – Summary and recommendations 49 i. Conclusions ii. Recommendations Appendices 52 i. Appendix 1 – Tables quantifying inequalities in commemoration ii. Appendix 2 – Committee composition and profiles iii. Appendix 3 – Select bibliography 5 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Special Committee was appointed to probe the early history of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) to identify inequalities in the way the organisation commemorated the dead of the British Empire from the two world wars. Where such inequalities were identified, it was asked to produce a set of recommendations that might assist and guide the present-day Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in responding to them. Due to the difficulties caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic and the apparent size of the task once begun, the Committee restricted its focus to IWGC operations during and following the First World War. Founded over a century ago to commemorate the First World War dead of the British Empire, from the outset the IWGC’s work was defined by the principle of equality of treatment in death. Whatever an individual’s rank in social or military life, whatever their religion, they would be commemorated identically – with their name engraved either on a headstone over an identified grave or on a memorial to the missing. While that principle was admirable, and in Europe effectively achieved, this report finds that the promise of equality had limits elsewhere. In conflict with the organisation’s founding principles, it is estimated that between 45,000 and 54,000 casualties (predominantly Indian, East African, West African, Egyptian and Somali personnel) were commemorated unequally. For some, rather than marking their graves individually, as the IWGC would have done in Europe, these men were commemorated collectively on memorials. For others who were missing, their names were recorded in registers rather than in stone. A further 116,000 casualties (predominantly, but not exclusively, East African and Egyptian personnel) – but potentially as many as 350,000 – were not commemorated by name or possibly not commemorated at all. Most of these men were commemorated by memorials that did not carry their names – in part because the IWGC was never furnished with their names or places of burial by the military or colonial authorities, in part because it chose to diverge from its principles in the belief that the communities these men came from would not recognise or value such individual forms of commemoration. This report finds that in the 1920s, across Africa, the Middle East and India, imperial ideology influenced the operations of the IWGC in a way that it did not in Europe, and the rules and principles that were sacred there were not always upheld elsewhere. As a result, contemporary attitudes towards non-European faiths and differing funerary rites, and an individual’s or group’s perceived ‘state of civilisation’, influenced their commemorative treatment in death. Although in the vast majority of cases the IWGC did not make the decision to diverge from its principles unilaterally, it should at least be considered complicit in all of them. While we should not lose sight of the inclusive and successful work of the Commission in Europe and elsewhere around the 6 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY world, we also should not overlook the mistakes in the organisation’s early history – many of which have been forgotten or reimagined over the century of its existence. For the CWGC to engage positively with this history and to take steps in righting and explaining the wrongs of the past, this Committee makes ten recommendations based around three central themes: • Extend geographically and chronologically the search in the historical record for inequalities in commemoration and act on what is found. • Renew the commitment to equality in commemoration through the building of physical or digital commemorative structures. • Acknowledge and accept this difficult history and share it with all the communities of the former British Empire touched by the two world wars. 7 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO REVIEW HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES IN COMMEMORATION INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION i. The dangers of complacency The Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) was founded in 1917 to commemorate in perpetuity the men and women of the British Empire who lost their lives in the First World War. It would extend its charter to incorporate just one other conflict, the Second World War, and now – more than a century since it was established – it preserves the memory of more than 1.7 million Commonwealth citizens who died in those struggles.1 It does this by maintaining cemeteries and memorials at more than 23,000 sites across the globe, while also providing a managed online database with the names and details of those in its care. A Royal Charter and several formative reports shaped the way in which the IWGC worked in the aftermath of the First World War and, more recently, how the now Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has reflected on that work.2 This reflection, further encouraged by the organisation’s own centenary in 2017, has informed public communications about its founding values and principles, which were ultimately distilled into four key statements: • Each of the Commonwealth dead should be commemorated by name on a headstone or memorial. • Headstones and memorials should be permanent. • Headstones should be uniform. • There should be equality of treatment for the war dead irrespective of rank or religion.3 It was one of the mentioned formative reports that provided the origins of these principles. This was completed for the Commission in the autumn of 1918 by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Frederic Kenyon – Director of the British Museum and Artistic Director to the IWGC – after consultation with relatives of the dead, the armed forces, religious leaders and representatives of the arts. Here it was stated that ‘all, whatever their military rank or position in civil life, should have equal treatment in their graves’ 1To qualify for commemoration as a casualty of the First World War, service personnel must have died between 4 August 1914 (Great Britain’s declaration of war) and 31 August 1921 (the official end of war following the Order in Council required by the Termination of the Present War (Definition) Act). For the Second World War the dates are 3 September 1939 (Great Britain’s declaration of war) and 31 December 1947 (a date agreed by the participating governments to produce a post-war period roughly equal to that of the First World War). Death after discharge still qualifies a casualty for commemoration if directly attributable to war service. 2In recognition of the changed relationships between Britain and its former Dominions and colonies, but also sure of the ongoing importance of its work, the organisation replaced ‘Imperial’ with ‘Commonwealth’ in its title in March 1960. 3These principles have featured on different iterations of the CWGC’s website since at least 1998.

Load more